Last week, 49 year old World Journal executive David Kao was murdered while sleeping in his car by two teenagers. The teenagers were 16 year old Corey Azor and 17 year old Chris Levy. The two snuck into his car and held him in a headlock until he passed out then dumped his body and left with his car, credit cards and the $115 dollars he had in his pocket. Let me repeat that...Two teenagers strangled an innocent man, robbed him, dumped his body and drove away with his car.

"I continued to hold him in the headlock and punch him in the face and then he stopped moving," - Chris Levy

The two were found, along with an accomplice joyriding in Mr. Kao's SUV two days later where they confessed to the gunpoint robbery of another Asian man the week before the murder. In their confessions, they claimed to be targeting Asian men that "looked drunk" as targets for robberies. In spite of this, the Queens District Attorney will not be prosecuting this as a hate crime. The lawyers for the teens have already started working on their defense with lawyer Melody Glover arguing "There are many innocent explanations as to why he was in possession of the car."

I call BULLSHIT on that.

There is a consistent trend in the New York City area of teenagers attacking Asian men. I cite as example the murders of Huang Chen, Jin Sheng-Liu and Chun Lin-Jian. Notice that in all three murders, teenagers were involved. Huang Chen was stabbed and beaten to death while he begged for his life by thugs who expressed a desire to "do the Chinese man" as a gang initiation. Police would later find Chen's body in a nearby pond. Jin Sheng Liu was beaten to death not for money, but for the Chinese food he was delivering by five teens. They ate the food while Liu bled to death. Chun Lin-Jian was reportedly shot during a holdup because he "smiled". The crooks in this case got $13 in cash and $12 in food. The root of this is the long standing racial perception of Chinese men as weak and submissive. "Easy targets." A brief look at recent incidents in the New York reveals that there is a degree of premeditation to these seemingly random crimes. Petty criminals and youth understand quite well what to expect when they select their targets.

Prosecute this attack as hate crimes. A precedent should be established that when criminals target a specific minority they can expect the hate crimes statute to be applied to their case. If stiffer penalties exist, maybe we can cut down on the number of incidents of violence. Maybe Asians will be less of a tempting target to petty criminals, bored teenagers or gangs. Most people perpetrate these attacks on the twisted belief that they can get away with it. We need to send a strong message.

FYI - Here is the current hate crime law (from AALDEF.com)

Congress, in Section 280003(a) of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (28 U.S.C. 994 note), defines a hate crime as a crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the case of a property crime, the property that is the object of the crime, because of the actual or perceived race, color, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person.

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The media has been quick to report that not only is this case not being prosecuted as a hate crime, but that Kao's colleagues at the World Journal also do not feel that it should be prosecuted as a hate crime. I understand that everyone hates injecting race into tragedy, but when the perpetrators admit to targeting a specific ethnic group, someone needs to draw the line.

The legal precedent already exists to prosecute such assaults as hate crimes as seen in the case of Michael Sandy where his attackers believed his sexual orientation made him a more compelling target for robbery. After responding to a Craigslist post to meet his eventual attackers at a secluded location, Sandy fled as soon as he was attacked. He ran onto the highway where he was struck and killed. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, who prosecuted the attack as a hate crime at that time argued:"We proved someone was killed because of his perceived vulnerability." "That was Michael Sandy."  City Council Speaker Christine Quinn appluaded prosecutors for applying the hate crime statute in this attack.

Perceived vulnerability. That is what these twisted individuals were exploiting when they choose to terrorize the residents of Flushing. The District Attorney needs to understand the racial undertones to this killing and treat this as a hate crime.  Are we going to wait until another David Kao is needlessly killed or are we going to do somthing about these ignorant punks?